The traditional getter technologies are expensive [R. Kullberg et al, US Pat. Appl. 20090215610, Aug. 27, 2009] and will become still more expensive in the future. In these traditional technologies the alloys of Fe, Ti,V, Zr and other transition metals are used, in a form of high porosity bodies as sorption materials.
Besides the high price the mentioned getters also have the disadvantage that their sorption capacity is negligibly small at room temperature. However, room temperature is the preferred range of temperatures for the purification process and sometimes the only range allowed due to operational restrictions.
These two problems, the high price of the getter material and its unsatisfactory sorption characteristics, are easily overcome with the help of new solutions based on gas sorption by reactive metals, which are mechanically activated at ambient temperature directly in the reaction zone. Mechanochemical activation of the reactive alloys by their milling inside a closed vessel is described in [K. Chuntonov, WO 2011145090, 24 Nov. 2011], where the design and the working principle of sorption pumps used for maintaining vacuum in evacuated chambers are disclosed.
However, the scope of the method of mechanochemical activation of solids reaches beyond the frames of only vacuum applications. It is shown below how the method of milling the alloys in a reaction zone can be adjusted to usage in processes for the purification of gas streams.